# Becoming a Best Ball Bro: How Many Quarterbacks Are Optimal?

An episode of [The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1224965828), 25 Jun 2025, 1 h 04 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0a233618-d694-4c81-a139-b34e00f98fb1/dbb496aa-c2fb-47e4-869b-b34e00fcde4a/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=5747cc82-33a9-497c-8353-b34e00f98fbe

JJ and Rich discuss the changing quarterback landscape over on DraftKings before JJ is joined by Establish the Run's Mike Leone. Mike talks through how he shifts his best ball strategy on a full PPR platform like DraftKings, drafting elite tight ends, the best place to select quarterbacks, and so much more. Order the Late-Round Prospect Guide or preorder the Late-Round Draft Guide on LateRound.com, and make sure to sign up for the free newsletter. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: So rich. I've got a family vacation next week, I'm
[0:04] Speaker 1: gonna be out of town. We're going to the beach.
[0:05] Speaker 1: Do you have any beach takes? Do you like the beach.
[0:07] Speaker 2: I'm gonna love hate relationship with the beach out here
[0:10] Speaker 2: in California because the water comes down from Alaska and
[0:15] Speaker 2: it also turns from deep from the Pacific Ocean, so
[0:18] Speaker 2: it's extremely cold at all times of the year. But
[0:22] Speaker 2: it's so pretty that it's hard not to go on
[0:24] Speaker 2: nice drives and look at it. But not the best,
[0:27] Speaker 2: not as good as the Atlantic Ocean. What about you?
[0:29] Speaker 1: So to me, the beach is like Brian Robinson and
[0:32] Speaker 1: best ball drafts, large and overrated. I'm JJ and last
[0:37] Speaker 1: year I tried my hardest to become a best ball
[0:39] Speaker 1: bro I drafted over five hundred teams. I talked to
[0:42] Speaker 1: some of the most successful best ball players in existence,
[0:45] Speaker 1: and I admittedly had mixed results. So this year I'm
[0:48] Speaker 1: going to chase that title once again. My plan is
[0:50] Speaker 1: a max enter draftings millionaire maker, and I'm gonna document
[0:54] Speaker 1: all of it while talking to the brightest best ball
[0:56] Speaker 1: minds and the planet. Last year I didn't quite get there,
[1:00] Speaker 1: But this year This is going to be the year
[1:02] Speaker 1: where I officially become a Best Ball thro This episode
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[2:55] Speaker 1: by dk now. Back to the show. Welcome into another
[3:01] Speaker 1: episode of becoming a Best Ball bro. I'm jj Zacharieson,
[3:05] Speaker 1: joined as always by Rich Ryan Rich. What's going on? Man?
[3:09] Speaker 1: Doing good? Man?
[3:10] Speaker 2: Your live draft recording this today on Tuesday? So for
[3:14] Speaker 2: the folks listening or watching on YouTube at late round FF,
[3:18] Speaker 2: yesterday was very much West Coast. Dad approved because it
[3:22] Speaker 2: was while I was making breakfast, getting the coffee ready.
[3:25] Speaker 2: I could fire on one point five x while I
[3:27] Speaker 2: was getting some stuff done. So love that time. Hope
[3:30] Speaker 2: you stick with it.
[3:31] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[3:32] Speaker 1: Look, a lot of people commented about that. I did
[3:34] Speaker 1: the show at ten am Eastern, and some people were commenting, like,
[3:38] Speaker 1: you know, after the show was over, being like, man,
[3:40] Speaker 1: you were up early this morning. I'm like, guys, I
[3:42] Speaker 1: got I got two kids. One of them's not seven yet,
[3:46] Speaker 1: she turns she turns seven at the end of July.
[3:48] Speaker 1: The other one's two and a half. You think that
[3:50] Speaker 1: I'm waking up at nine am every morning, I mean
[3:52] Speaker 1: I am up at six am every day because those
[3:56] Speaker 1: kids make me get up at six am every day.
[3:58] Speaker 1: Summertime has been a little bit nice. It's a little
[4:00] Speaker 1: bit closer to seven because you know, they'll go to
[4:02] Speaker 1: bed a little bit later because we're out, you know,
[4:04] Speaker 1: doing summertime things.
[4:06] Speaker 3: You know.
[4:06] Speaker 1: But yeah, man, I did at ten am. It was
[4:08] Speaker 1: an easy time for me to do it, and if
[4:10] Speaker 1: people are into that, I can do it at ten
[4:12] Speaker 1: am more often. I didn't even think about the fact
[4:15] Speaker 1: that I was reaching the West Coast demographic. The way
[4:17] Speaker 1: that I was reaching them.
[4:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, it was. It was the perfect way to
[4:22] Speaker 2: start the day. I'm usually doing those chores listening to
[4:25] Speaker 2: some kind of podcasts, but today I got to replace
[4:27] Speaker 2: it with some info, some knowledge, and you had a
[4:30] Speaker 2: query on that live stream that we're going to be
[4:33] Speaker 2: able to dig into here.
[4:34] Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do that. You know, I've been drafting. I
[4:36] Speaker 1: think I'm only at like twenty six or twenty seven
[4:39] Speaker 1: million makers at this point, and I'm trying to max
[4:41] Speaker 1: it at one point fifty, so a little bit behind.
[4:45] Speaker 1: You know, David Kitchen who works for Late Round Fantasy
[4:48] Speaker 1: Football Shout out Kitchen, who is the COO. He's in
[4:52] Speaker 1: the forties, so he's like twenty ahead of me right now.
[4:54] Speaker 1: He's doing well, you know, with keeping pace. I'm not.
[4:59] Speaker 1: I need to basically do like to a day at
[5:02] Speaker 1: this point to feel really good. But it's gonna be
[5:05] Speaker 1: more than two a day because I like to do
[5:06] Speaker 1: it live and not slow drafts, you know, with these things,
[5:10] Speaker 1: because you know, for all the reasons that we've talked
[5:12] Speaker 1: about before, but on that live stream, you know, I
[5:15] Speaker 1: mentioned something that I want to talk about and that
[5:17] Speaker 1: we'll talk about today. You brought some ADP data, and
[5:20] Speaker 1: I want to see if my sort of intuition lines
[5:24] Speaker 1: up with what the ADP data says, and that intuition
[5:27] Speaker 1: is it feels like a lot of these later round
[5:31] Speaker 1: quarterbacks right now they're moving up in ADP. And I'm
[5:35] Speaker 1: not talking about like the bo Nix's or brock Perdies
[5:39] Speaker 1: or Dak Prescott's even of the world. I mean, I
[5:42] Speaker 1: think Dak you you can maybe argue, but I'm speaking
[5:44] Speaker 1: more to the fact that it seemed like in May
[5:47] Speaker 1: when I was doing these drafts, I could wait a
[5:50] Speaker 1: really long time at times and still get Bryce Young
[5:53] Speaker 1: at a at a reasonable cost, or still get you know,
[5:55] Speaker 1: obviously Aaron Rodgers hadn't signed anywhere yet, and we didn't
[5:58] Speaker 1: know that he you know, I mean, we had an
[6:00] Speaker 1: idea that he was going to be a Steeler, but
[6:01] Speaker 1: we didn't know for sure that he was going to
[6:03] Speaker 1: be a Steeler. And it felt like you get those
[6:05] Speaker 1: kinds of players like towards the tail end of your draft,
[6:08] Speaker 1: but now you're getting them in round twelve, round thirteen,
[6:13] Speaker 1: and all of the quarterbacks are like dried up and
[6:16] Speaker 1: done starting quarterbacks by the time you get to the
[6:19] Speaker 1: end of round fourteen, which leaves six rounds of your
[6:23] Speaker 1: draft with really not a whole lot of quarterback selections.
[6:26] Speaker 1: And so I had this discussion on the live stream
[6:29] Speaker 1: where you know my particular build, which, by the way,
[6:32] Speaker 1: if you guys want to see a bill that I
[6:34] Speaker 1: personally like and prefer I would check out that stream
[6:37] Speaker 1: as the most recent ones that would have been on
[6:39] Speaker 1: June twenty fourth. But you know, I had a three
[6:41] Speaker 1: quarterback build. I got Caleb Williams because I drafted Roma Dunza,
[6:45] Speaker 1: and then I drafted you know, Matthew Golden, so I
[6:47] Speaker 1: ended up going with Jordan Love and then I got
[6:49] Speaker 1: Brock Bauers early, and I had a Molikue Neighbors and
[6:51] Speaker 1: Tyrone Tracy bringback, and I got Geno Smith, so I
[6:54] Speaker 1: had all three quarterbacks were stacked, which is great. But
[6:58] Speaker 1: then you look back at the draft board and you see,
[7:01] Speaker 1: you know, I'm getting Gino Smith because of the way
[7:04] Speaker 1: that people push quarterbacks, and we know that DraftKings can
[7:08] Speaker 1: be the Wild West in a good way, in a
[7:10] Speaker 1: fun way, right, and the way that people will just
[7:12] Speaker 1: take unstacked quarterbacks and uncorrelated quarterbacks, and so you feel
[7:16] Speaker 1: this need to get these quarterbacks maybe around ahead of ADP,
[7:21] Speaker 1: and I think that's also driving these quarterback prices up
[7:24] Speaker 1: a little bit. So I'll ask you, are we seeing
[7:27] Speaker 1: this in the market. Are quarterback ADPs these lower end quarterbacks?
[7:30] Speaker 1: Are they shooting up a little bit? And I say
[7:32] Speaker 1: a little bit because obviously when we look at averages,
[7:35] Speaker 1: we're not expecting like two rounds worth of ADP when
[7:39] Speaker 1: we're looking at averages across a pretty you know, long
[7:42] Speaker 1: time period. But are these ADPs for these quarterbacks? Are
[7:45] Speaker 1: they actually shifting right now?
[7:47] Speaker 2: Ten quarterbacks since we started doing this show have moved up.
[7:50] Speaker 2: Two of them for more obvious reasons. Aaron Rodgers the
[7:54] Speaker 2: most obvious. He's up thirty point eight spots because he
[7:57] Speaker 2: signed officially with your Pittsburgh Steelers. Daniel Jones is actually
[8:01] Speaker 2: the largest mover at thirty one point eight spots, and
[8:03] Speaker 2: that's because of the drumbeait that we are getting out
[8:06] Speaker 2: of Indianapolis that he is likely to be the starter there.
[8:09] Speaker 2: And then you've got eight quarterbacks who don't have very
[8:13] Speaker 2: much major news attached to them, but they are up.
[8:17] Speaker 2: McCarthy up ten spots, Shuck up eight point six, Prescott seven,
[8:22] Speaker 2: Pennix six, Drake May, Bryce Young, Brock Perty Justin Fields
[8:26] Speaker 2: all up five, three and two. So you're right in
[8:32] Speaker 2: a general sentiment that things are starting to creep up,
[8:35] Speaker 2: and we know it being June, that the influx of
[8:39] Speaker 2: casual drafters is not here yet. Right, this is the
[8:42] Speaker 2: quietest time in the twelve month NFL calendar where there
[8:45] Speaker 2: is NonStop news all of the time. This is going
[8:49] Speaker 2: to be the quietest time of the year, and it's
[8:51] Speaker 2: going to be quite quiet for drafters. So I can
[8:54] Speaker 2: only see this increasing the more influx of casual drafters
[8:58] Speaker 2: that we get.
[8:59] Speaker 1: Yeah, and the problem too, So going back to like
[9:02] Speaker 1: let's look at Dak for instance, and you can you
[9:03] Speaker 1: can again, you can go back and have a companion
[9:05] Speaker 1: while we're talking about this by looking at the draft
[9:07] Speaker 1: board that I did on twenty on to twenty fourth.
[9:10] Speaker 1: You know, during that ten am live stream, but you know,
[9:13] Speaker 1: Dak Prescott goes in like round ten, right, and then
[9:16] Speaker 1: I get Jordan Love. I think it was like a
[9:19] Speaker 1: round and a half later than Dak, and then Geno
[9:21] Speaker 1: Smith pretty close to that, just because I needed to
[9:24] Speaker 1: get Gino. And so the thing is, though, is that
[9:27] Speaker 1: the opportunity cost I don't even think Jordan Love is
[9:29] Speaker 1: the example. I think Geno is the example. So like,
[9:31] Speaker 1: let's just say Geno goes a round and a half,
[9:32] Speaker 1: two rounds after Dak Prescott. But it might have been bigger,
[9:36] Speaker 1: might have been smaller. Let's just run with this hypothetical.
[9:39] Speaker 1: The opportunity cost when you actually look at the players
[9:42] Speaker 1: that are being drafted in between those two quarterbacks, to me,
[9:47] Speaker 1: it's not that significant. And that's the problem in waiting
[9:52] Speaker 1: for that type of quarterback in general, right where if
[9:56] Speaker 1: you look at the opportunity cost, So so the opportunity
[9:58] Speaker 1: cost the types of run you're drafting Dak Prescott over
[10:03] Speaker 1: in those rounds, Ramandre Stevenson, Javonte Williams. They're the kind
[10:08] Speaker 1: of players and wide receivers there too. They're the kind
[10:11] Speaker 1: of players that you almost feel forced to take because
[10:14] Speaker 1: you don't need a quarterback, right, Like you're just like, well,
[10:17] Speaker 1: I don't know who to pick. I don't have anyone
[10:19] Speaker 1: else to go with, so sure, I'll take Ramondre Stevenson
[10:21] Speaker 1: even though they just drafted an early round two running
[10:23] Speaker 1: back who's going to steal a lot of pass catching
[10:25] Speaker 1: work from him, right, or I'm gonna get Javonte Williams,
[10:28] Speaker 1: who hasn't been efficient since his major knee injury, and
[10:31] Speaker 1: sure he might be the lead back for Dallas, but
[10:33] Speaker 1: I don't think anyone feels overly confident about Javonte Williams
[10:38] Speaker 1: and fantasy football this year. I'm not saying I'm fading him,
[10:40] Speaker 1: but it's not like you're gonna be aggressively targeting Javonte
[10:43] Speaker 1: Williams at this moment, right And So, even though I
[10:46] Speaker 1: do think that some people in the fantasy industry have
[10:48] Speaker 1: taken the Davonte's stuff a little bit too far, I
[10:50] Speaker 1: will say that, but you look at that, and then
[10:52] Speaker 1: you look at the other tier of running backs that
[10:54] Speaker 1: I talked to Tyler about in particular last week, and
[10:58] Speaker 1: I think that that we both really are read that
[11:01] Speaker 1: there are some zero RB targets on DraftKings that just
[11:04] Speaker 1: go way too late. And I'm talking the kinds of
[11:07] Speaker 1: players I'm talking about here. I've talked about Austin Eckler
[11:09] Speaker 1: already plenty on the show. You know, I think that
[11:12] Speaker 1: Eckler's ADP is driven down by sure, Brian Robinson. Sure
[11:17] Speaker 1: it's a mobile quarterback. And I do think Deebo Samuel
[11:19] Speaker 1: is probably playing someone of a role with this, but
[11:21] Speaker 1: I still think his ADP is way too low. Austin Necklers,
[11:24] Speaker 1: But like Rashad White, why does Rashad White go where
[11:29] Speaker 1: he goes and drafts? I cannot understand why a guy
[11:33] Speaker 1: who wasn't even that bad with Bucky Irving last year. Okay,
[11:36] Speaker 1: from a points per game perspective, he's a pass catcher.
[11:40] Speaker 1: He could be their negative game script back if and
[11:42] Speaker 1: when those negative game scripts hit and he has continued
[11:45] Speaker 1: upside if Bucky Irving gets hurt, then Rashad White sees
[11:49] Speaker 1: a tunnel. We've seen Rashad White be a low end
[11:52] Speaker 1: RB one and Fantasy football before, and this is a
[11:54] Speaker 1: really good offensive environment for him to hypothetically thrive in. Right,
[11:58] Speaker 1: So you get Rashad White Jalen Right, I think is
[12:00] Speaker 1: a really interesting zero RB target. Like to me, if
[12:03] Speaker 1: I'm thinking about ceiling outcomes, I don't think there's that
[12:07] Speaker 1: big of a difference in ceiling outcome between Ramandre Stevenson
[12:10] Speaker 1: and you know, Rashad White, or I would argue that
[12:13] Speaker 1: Rashad White has a bigger ceiling outcome than Ramandre Stevenson
[12:17] Speaker 1: or rico'dowdell, who we talked about on the show last
[12:20] Speaker 1: week as someone who, uh, you know, if you're not
[12:22] Speaker 1: drafting as much Tuba, which I'm not drafting as much
[12:25] Speaker 1: Tuba for reasons I've discussed on you know, the Late
[12:28] Speaker 1: Round Fantasy Football show, which is also on YouTube. I'm
[12:31] Speaker 1: afraid of that previous season yards per out run and
[12:34] Speaker 1: the fact that they get two pass catching backs over
[12:37] Speaker 1: the offseason that could steal some of that work. Rico
[12:39] Speaker 1: Dowdell's that dude. And if again there's condition upside, like
[12:42] Speaker 1: if Tuba Hubber gets hurt, ric o'dowdell would be the
[12:45] Speaker 1: one A in that backfield more than likely, right. And
[12:47] Speaker 1: so the problem in drafting and waiting those like and
[12:52] Speaker 1: trying to squeeze out value in those couple of rounds
[12:54] Speaker 1: from a guy like Dak and even Purdy when he falls,
[12:57] Speaker 1: the problem is that there aren't many good players drafting anyways.
[13:01] Speaker 3: Right.
[13:02] Speaker 1: The major issue that I run into is I only
[13:06] Speaker 1: want to draft quarterbacks where I'm generally stacking. And this
[13:10] Speaker 1: is what this has done. And I know that we're
[13:12] Speaker 1: kind of getting deep here in the weeds and it
[13:14] Speaker 1: might be tough to follow.
[13:15] Speaker 2: This is the good stuff, now, this is the good stuff.
[13:17] Speaker 1: What this has done for me is it's forced me
[13:20] Speaker 1: to take a lot of naked quarterbacks to stack then
[13:23] Speaker 1: late because I just want to get a quarterback who
[13:26] Speaker 1: I know is going to be a good value and
[13:28] Speaker 1: then hope to get some pieces later. So it's harder
[13:31] Speaker 1: to do that with like a Dak Prescott, but it's
[13:33] Speaker 1: easier to do that with a Trevor Lawrence. Right, you
[13:35] Speaker 1: can get Diami Brown and Brenton Strange. You can do
[13:37] Speaker 1: with Jordan Love really easily, right with with Romeo Dubbs,
[13:41] Speaker 1: even Dontavian Wicks if you really want to. But you
[13:43] Speaker 1: can still try to get like a Matthew Golden and
[13:45] Speaker 1: set that up when you see your draft going a
[13:48] Speaker 1: certain direction, you know early on if you're not getting
[13:50] Speaker 1: a lot of that correlation. Right, I'm not saying like,
[13:52] Speaker 1: at the end of the day, like a lot of
[13:54] Speaker 1: the pocket passers, and I've written about this, I've talked
[13:56] Speaker 1: about this, a lot of the pocket passers can match
[13:59] Speaker 1: the product of the earlier round pocket passers. It's why
[14:03] Speaker 1: I don't think in season long, especially Jared Goff is
[14:05] Speaker 1: a very good pick at all, because Jared Goff's production
[14:08] Speaker 1: is gonna there's arbitrage to that production, right you can, like,
[14:11] Speaker 1: I know it sounds crazy, but I'm not gonna be
[14:14] Speaker 1: surprised if like Geno Smith outscores Jared Goff this year, Like,
[14:17] Speaker 1: do I think it's probable, No, but I there's at
[14:20] Speaker 1: least this outcome. If touchdown rates go a certain way,
[14:23] Speaker 1: if teams start scoring more rushing touchdowns and passing touchdowns
[14:26] Speaker 1: in a sort of abnormal way, then you can see
[14:28] Speaker 1: a scenario where Geno Smith just outscores you know, Jared Goff.
[14:32] Speaker 1: So I don't want to like downplay that idea because
[14:35] Speaker 1: I do think that's really really important. But at the
[14:37] Speaker 1: same time, a player like Dak Prescott, a player like
[14:40] Speaker 1: Caleb Williams even right, like these guys are seemingly stagnant
[14:46] Speaker 1: for the most part, like not shifting as much as
[14:48] Speaker 1: some of the guys shifting like later than them, And
[14:51] Speaker 1: that's creating a better value for those players. And then
[14:54] Speaker 1: it's also going back to what we had talked about
[14:56] Speaker 1: with like Neil Orfield, you know, a couple episodes ago.
[14:59] Speaker 1: It's creating the early round quarterbacks becoming a little bit
[15:02] Speaker 1: more valuable too, because if every quarterback gets drafted earlier
[15:07] Speaker 1: then the early round quarterbacks, if they stay with the
[15:09] Speaker 1: exact same ADP, then they're more attractive, right because if
[15:12] Speaker 1: you're getting Josh Allen in the fourth round, he's fallen
[15:14] Speaker 1: to the fourth plenty and drafts that I've done. If
[15:16] Speaker 1: you get Josh Allen in the early fourth round and
[15:19] Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, you know, Baker Mayfield goes
[15:21] Speaker 1: in the seventh and you know bo Nix and stuff
[15:24] Speaker 1: are going in the late seventh, that's huge for the Josh,
[15:27] Speaker 1: for the Josh Allen drafter, you know. And so that's
[15:29] Speaker 1: where my head's been at a lot with these drafts,
[15:32] Speaker 1: is that I'm trying to recognize the flow of the
[15:35] Speaker 1: quarterback position and that's changing the way that I'm drafting
[15:38] Speaker 1: the position. If I can get those later stacks.
[15:40] Speaker 2: That is what's so interesting about where the market is shifting,
[15:45] Speaker 2: because it's the middle class that is shifting up and
[15:49] Speaker 2: the top end. Josh Allen is down five point seven spots,
[15:53] Speaker 2: Lamar Jackson down three point four spots, Jayden Daniels down
[15:56] Speaker 2: four point three spots. So that part of my brain
[16:00] Speaker 2: is it's really tough to click on a lot of
[16:02] Speaker 2: these middle class quarterbacks because you know, you're spending up
[16:06] Speaker 2: for an asset that is not as valuable as the
[16:08] Speaker 2: ones that have just been drafted, right, and it just
[16:12] Speaker 2: it's really a tough buy to make. But on the
[16:17] Speaker 2: flip side, you're gonna be find yourself in these situations
[16:20] Speaker 2: where one of the things you've talked about repeatedly at
[16:23] Speaker 2: these onesie positions quarterback and tight end, especially when it
[16:26] Speaker 2: comes to value, is that if you were the first
[16:30] Speaker 2: to take a player in a tier in one of
[16:32] Speaker 2: these onesie positions, you damn well better hope that the
[16:36] Speaker 2: players after you are also taking these players. And I
[16:39] Speaker 2: think that's holding true at the quarterback position on DraftKings
[16:43] Speaker 2: right now. So that bit of fear that am I
[16:46] Speaker 2: really going to take this quarterback and be out on
[16:48] Speaker 2: a limb when eight or nine running backs and receivers
[16:52] Speaker 2: go next, I don't think so. From what I'm seeing anecdotally,
[16:56] Speaker 2: I think we can comfortably start new tiers on quarterback
[16:59] Speaker 2: and we'll see quarterbacks go off the board after.
[17:02] Speaker 1: Yeah. I think part of the problem too is that,
[17:05] Speaker 1: you know, I personally am really enjoying the more unpredictable
[17:08] Speaker 1: nature of draftings best ball because it creates a lot
[17:11] Speaker 1: of value for your team. You can have a really
[17:15] Speaker 1: strong build. Like if you get a really strong build
[17:17] Speaker 1: with a lot of correlation, you're standing out against the
[17:20] Speaker 1: competition a lot more on DraftKings, because there's people on
[17:23] Speaker 1: DraftKings that are, you know, entering They're like, oh, what's
[17:25] Speaker 1: best ball. I'm gonna try out best ball and they
[17:27] Speaker 1: don't know, they don't have any idea what stacking is,
[17:30] Speaker 1: what week seventeen correlation is anything like that or optimal
[17:33] Speaker 1: you know, roster builds. And at one you know, on
[17:35] Speaker 1: one side, it's really frustrating because you know you'll get
[17:38] Speaker 1: you know, I drafted Jamar Chase and t Higgins the
[17:41] Speaker 1: other day and Trey McBride and someone took naked Joe
[17:43] Speaker 1: Burrow in the middle of the third round and you're like,
[17:45] Speaker 1: what why, you know, why, why is this happening. It's
[17:49] Speaker 1: really frustrating on that end. But you can sort of
[17:52] Speaker 1: flip that on its head. And that's why, I mean,
[17:54] Speaker 1: look at this, look at this show, Rich like we
[17:56] Speaker 1: haven't complained about that at all. This offense that's shu.
[18:00] Speaker 1: I feel like we were tilting.
[18:01] Speaker 2: I feel like we were tilting way more last year, whereas
[18:04] Speaker 2: and this is a trope that comes from poker is
[18:06] Speaker 2: a lot of people will complain when they're playing against
[18:09] Speaker 2: weaker competition. Oh, the big thing is, I'm going to
[18:12] Speaker 2: move up to a stake where people are going to
[18:14] Speaker 2: respect my raise, And it's like, no, you actually want
[18:17] Speaker 2: to be playing against people who are not going to
[18:20] Speaker 2: respect your raise and hand you equity. And yes, in
[18:22] Speaker 2: the short term, you're going to get your butt kicked sometimes.
[18:25] Speaker 2: Sometimes people are going to take unstacked Joe Burrow and
[18:29] Speaker 2: it's going to make you very angry. But when your
[18:31] Speaker 2: competition is making these mistakes at such a high frequency,
[18:35] Speaker 2: that's when we can take advantage and build better teams.
[18:37] Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it just comes down to, like, like
[18:39] Speaker 1: the live stream again, going back to that, I had
[18:42] Speaker 1: very little correlation through like eight rounds of that stream,
[18:45] Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people will feel. You know,
[18:47] Speaker 1: if you're consuming this podcast, if you're consuming best ball content,
[18:50] Speaker 1: you're you're ahead of the curve in general, especially on DK,
[18:54] Speaker 1: in terms of like your knowledge about best ball. Right,
[18:56] Speaker 1: so you're probably thinking through round eight if you have
[18:58] Speaker 1: no correlation, I'm rude. Because there's no correlation, you feel
[19:02] Speaker 1: really unbalanced and it feels tougher to land the plane,
[19:05] Speaker 1: if you will, But it's really not that difficult. It's
[19:08] Speaker 1: not nearly as difficult as you think, especially with the
[19:10] Speaker 1: extra rounds too, And so I think that's really just
[19:13] Speaker 1: where my mindset has shifted a lot. Drafting on DraftKings
[19:17] Speaker 1: is just knowing that it's not over when you don't
[19:20] Speaker 1: have that early correlation. And it's okay, Like describing the
[19:24] Speaker 1: quarterbacks as just like middle round quarterbacks doesn't do it
[19:26] Speaker 1: enough justice, because there's a lot of pockets, right, Like,
[19:28] Speaker 1: there are times where Dak and Justin Herbert and you know,
[19:32] Speaker 1: like a Jordan Love type or whomever, they'll fall. And
[19:34] Speaker 1: that's where I'm trying to attack and get those players
[19:37] Speaker 1: when they do fall. I'm speaking more to the idea
[19:41] Speaker 1: that when those players start to come off the board,
[19:45] Speaker 1: you can't push it.
[19:46] Speaker 2: The avalanche is coming, the famous receiver avalanche that we
[19:50] Speaker 2: talked about last year. Yeah, there is a end of
[19:52] Speaker 2: round nine, beginning of round ten quarterback avalanche, and you
[19:56] Speaker 2: better get out ahead of it.
[19:58] Speaker 1: Right right, You can't. It's one of those things. It's
[20:00] Speaker 1: like you don't want to be at the end of
[20:01] Speaker 1: a run, right because then you're just devaluing that player.
[20:04] Speaker 1: But at the same time it run, it dries up,
[20:07] Speaker 1: it runs out. You can get screwed if you don't,
[20:10] Speaker 1: you know, react to that run happening. And it's harder
[20:13] Speaker 1: to do that when you're at the turn, and so
[20:15] Speaker 1: you do have to push it a little bit, not
[20:18] Speaker 1: push it, actually do the opsicc is pushing would mean
[20:19] Speaker 1: that you push guys later in the draft. You have
[20:22] Speaker 1: to attack it more aggressively than you otherwise think that
[20:25] Speaker 1: you should. Right, Like even the draft today, dude, like
[20:28] Speaker 1: I had Roma Dunze and I wanted Kayleb Williams that
[20:32] Speaker 1: was in the eleventh spot. Usually in the eleven spot
[20:34] Speaker 1: when a team, the team had Jaden Daniels next to me,
[20:36] Speaker 1: right all day. In a rational logical world, I would
[20:41] Speaker 1: not draft Kayleb Williams and wait until it comes back
[20:44] Speaker 1: around because it's only two more picks, and I'd get
[20:46] Speaker 1: the running back or wide receiver that I liked more
[20:49] Speaker 1: and then just get Kayleb Williams in the next round
[20:50] Speaker 1: because they got Jaden Daniels. You can't do that, and that,
[20:54] Speaker 1: at the end of the day is why these ADPs
[20:57] Speaker 1: I think are rising, because there's a lot of panic,
[21:00] Speaker 1: but the panic, in my opinion, is justified at the
[21:03] Speaker 1: end of the day.
[21:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely, And again so this hits on multiple
[21:09] Speaker 2: things that we've discussed. This is also one of the
[21:11] Speaker 2: reasons why I think it's so valuable to be doing
[21:14] Speaker 2: these fast strafts because you can pay attention and make
[21:18] Speaker 2: your decisions based on what's actually happening, as opposed to
[21:22] Speaker 2: just opening up your lineup and trying to refigure out
[21:25] Speaker 2: what you're doing and what round it is and recalibrate.
[21:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good point. So today's guest I did
[21:31] Speaker 1: talk about the quarterback position with him. It's Mike Leoni,
[21:34] Speaker 1: a good friend of mine from Established the Run. He's
[21:36] Speaker 1: been a successful best ball player in the past. I
[21:38] Speaker 1: was gonna say DFS player, but he's also been a
[21:40] Speaker 1: very successful DFS player. He's done a ton of research
[21:43] Speaker 1: in best ball, probably more research than like almost any
[21:47] Speaker 1: other human on the planet with best ball stuff, so
[21:49] Speaker 1: obviously has a ton of knowlogy brings to the table.
[21:52] Speaker 1: We talked about the quarterback position and he talked about
[21:54] Speaker 1: really liking those middle round you know, more like boring
[21:58] Speaker 1: kind of pocket passer types, because he, you know, feels
[22:01] Speaker 1: that he would be able to match, you know, with
[22:03] Speaker 1: three of them, and with that extra round of DraftKings
[22:05] Speaker 1: match some of the earlier round quarterback stuff. So it's
[22:07] Speaker 1: an interesting conversation that will tie in really well with
[22:10] Speaker 1: what we just discussed when we talk about DraftKings being
[22:12] Speaker 1: a full PPR format again, the quarterback landscape, elite tight end,
[22:15] Speaker 1: he has some interesting elite tight end takes so much more.
[22:20] Speaker 1: Super sharp guy, super awesome guy. So, without further ado,
[22:23] Speaker 1: here is my interview with Mike Leoni. All right, Leoni.
[22:33] Speaker 1: With DraftKings being a PPR platform, I got to ask you,
[22:38] Speaker 1: how does that shift the way that you draft? I
[22:40] Speaker 1: know you've done so much research in Best Ball I
[22:42] Speaker 1: think you might have like like from an analytical perspective,
[22:45] Speaker 1: there are a few people I think on planet Earth
[22:46] Speaker 1: who have done more uh you know, work within Best
[22:49] Speaker 1: Ball that than you have. So I should preface all
[22:52] Speaker 1: of that, all this with that. But with DraftKings being
[22:55] Speaker 1: full PPR, how does that shift your your draft strategy?
[22:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the obvious the pass catchers are boosted
[23:01] Speaker 3: up earlier. I'm going to draft wide receiver heavier earlier
[23:05] Speaker 3: because the gap between the top wide receivers and you know,
[23:08] Speaker 3: the scores you can cobble together in the later rounds
[23:11] Speaker 3: is going to grow. I think that's pretty intuitive, but
[23:14] Speaker 3: sometimes people are still reaching too much for running backs.
[23:17] Speaker 3: And when talking about running backs, you do want to
[23:20] Speaker 3: consider the range of outcomes on some of these non
[23:23] Speaker 3: pass catching backs. Like obviously, if you have a situation
[23:25] Speaker 3: like last year where sakuon Dereck Henry, like they really
[23:28] Speaker 3: hit their ceiling, it's not going to matter. But I
[23:31] Speaker 3: do think you want to consider like this seventy fifth
[23:34] Speaker 3: percentile outcomes for some of these guys where they have
[23:36] Speaker 3: a pretty good season but they're just not catching a
[23:39] Speaker 3: lot of balls and they're really getting passed at a
[23:41] Speaker 3: point in the draft where there's a ton of opportunity cost.
[23:44] Speaker 3: You know, someone like Jonathan Tayler. We're about a half
[23:47] Speaker 3: round behind on ADP on DraftKings, and the pass catching
[23:51] Speaker 3: is a big reason why, you know, it really needs
[23:53] Speaker 3: to have a superior rushing efficiency season, which can happen.
[23:57] Speaker 3: They happened last year on a couple guys that we
[23:59] Speaker 3: were too low on and it burned us. But at
[24:02] Speaker 3: the end of the day, when you're looking at the bets,
[24:03] Speaker 3: you're making the total range of outcomes. You got to
[24:06] Speaker 3: factor that in, so be careful with, especially in the
[24:09] Speaker 3: first three to four rounds, getting those backs that really
[24:12] Speaker 3: don't have much of a pass catching profile. And then
[24:15] Speaker 3: I think there's some notes on tight end, but I
[24:17] Speaker 3: want to save that for talking about elite tight ends later.
[24:20] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[24:20] Speaker 3: Cool.
[24:21] Speaker 1: I do want to ask you if you know, should
[24:24] Speaker 1: drafters be assuming that the flex spot is being filled
[24:29] Speaker 1: with wide receiver. I don't want to think two binary,
[24:32] Speaker 1: of course, because obviously you could hit on a mid
[24:34] Speaker 1: round running back or late round running back and then
[24:36] Speaker 1: that guy is just going to be you know, you
[24:37] Speaker 1: have three really solid running backs each week. But when
[24:40] Speaker 1: you're going into a draft, are you sort of intuitively
[24:43] Speaker 1: thinking like this is a start, maybe not four wide receiver,
[24:46] Speaker 1: but like three point eight wide receiver or something like that.
[24:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's like the old school, you want
[24:51] Speaker 3: to win the flex, right, So absolutely I'm going into
[24:55] Speaker 3: a draft considering receiver much more. On a half PPR
[24:58] Speaker 3: best ball site is more likely to fill my flats.
[25:01] Speaker 3: And the bonuses play a factor into this too, obviously,
[25:04] Speaker 3: like the very elite rushers up top can get that
[25:06] Speaker 3: one hundred yard rushing bonus. But I think you're going
[25:08] Speaker 3: to see a little bit more from the receiving game,
[25:10] Speaker 3: and again just that gap grows between the elite wide
[25:14] Speaker 3: receivers and the non elites, and I guess, like as
[25:16] Speaker 3: we're talking about this too, you know that funnels to
[25:18] Speaker 3: the quarterback position, where there's some weird intricacies where I
[25:22] Speaker 3: feel like the things that make sense on draft kings,
[25:25] Speaker 3: the market does like opposite, and they do them like
[25:28] Speaker 3: more on like some of the half PPR sites. One
[25:31] Speaker 3: of them would be the running backs go earlier on
[25:33] Speaker 3: DraftKings than some other sites, even though they get hurt
[25:35] Speaker 3: by the PPR scoring. The other would be the elite
[25:38] Speaker 3: quarterbacks sometimes go like pretty early on draft kings. And
[25:41] Speaker 3: as we're talking through it, like even the pass catching
[25:44] Speaker 3: running backs, like the skill players that get a lot
[25:47] Speaker 3: of volume, whether the running backs, wide receivers or tight ends,
[25:50] Speaker 3: the gap between them and the inferior players later in
[25:54] Speaker 3: the draft is just growing. Whereas the draft between the
[25:56] Speaker 3: quarterbacks early in the draft and later in the draft
[25:59] Speaker 3: is about the same as it is on a half
[26:01] Speaker 3: PPR site. Yet get some of these elite quarterbacks even
[26:04] Speaker 3: earlier on DraftKings, so it's tougher for me to draft
[26:08] Speaker 3: an elite quarterback on DraftKings.
[26:11] Speaker 1: Do you think that part of that And this goes
[26:13] Speaker 1: into the next question I want to ask you, do
[26:15] Speaker 1: you think that part of it with d k's quarterback
[26:18] Speaker 1: ADP and quarterback landscape has to do with the fact
[26:20] Speaker 1: that more teams are going to be willing to go
[26:23] Speaker 1: with three quarterback. Now, there's been plenty of research. I
[26:26] Speaker 1: don't know how much you've done around this. I'm sure
[26:29] Speaker 1: plenty as well, but I know that the conversation, especially
[26:32] Speaker 1: this offseason on Twitter and on social media, has been
[26:36] Speaker 1: to go three quarterback as opposed to going two quarterback,
[26:39] Speaker 1: or at least more people are kind of forcing that.
[26:41] Speaker 1: And then with DraftKings having two additional rounds end up
[26:44] Speaker 1: being a twenty round draft, that probably forces people to
[26:48] Speaker 1: say to themselves, Hey, you know I'm gonna get three
[26:50] Speaker 1: quarterbacks in this draft. I know I'm going to get
[26:52] Speaker 1: three quarterbacks in this draft. And so that naturally just
[26:55] Speaker 1: like pushes some of these guys upwards a little bit.
[26:57] Speaker 1: Do you think that's happening? And then do you add
[27:00] Speaker 1: for that three quarterback strategy? And then one more question
[27:03] Speaker 1: on top of that, how are you sort of altering
[27:05] Speaker 1: your strategy with there being those two additional rounds.
[27:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm not totally convinced that people drafting more
[27:13] Speaker 3: quarterbacks is driving up the elite quarterback ADP. Just looking
[27:16] Speaker 3: at our ranks relative to ADP, you know, we're pretty
[27:20] Speaker 3: behind on the elite quarterbacks, but we're like I had
[27:22] Speaker 3: a ADP on a lot of the mid tier quarterbacks,
[27:25] Speaker 3: and I think that scarcity would drive everybody up if
[27:28] Speaker 3: that's what was causing it. Yeah, it's possible. You know,
[27:31] Speaker 3: we're just very off market in terms of where we
[27:33] Speaker 3: think the quarterbacks should go. As far as drafting three quarterbacks,
[27:37] Speaker 3: I think with the twenty round drafts, three quarterbacks three
[27:41] Speaker 3: tight ends should be like your default. And I think
[27:44] Speaker 3: even with taking an elite quarterback or an elite tight end,
[27:47] Speaker 3: there's room to take a third. And it's kind of
[27:49] Speaker 3: an unnecessary risk not to maybe be a little bit
[27:53] Speaker 3: more prone to only taking two quarterbacks because you don't
[27:57] Speaker 3: want to take a really shaky third if you've got
[27:58] Speaker 3: an elite quarterback and like kind of waste the spot late.
[28:01] Speaker 3: But you can still pull off the elite quarterback strategy
[28:04] Speaker 3: and not devote a ton of That doesn't mean you're
[28:06] Speaker 3: taking three, you know, two other mid tier quarterbacks with
[28:09] Speaker 3: your elite quarterback, You're still going to wait and not
[28:11] Speaker 3: devote a ton of capital, just like is kind of
[28:13] Speaker 3: the idea behind a two quarterback strategies. You don't have
[28:15] Speaker 3: to vote as much capital. You can devote roster spots.
[28:18] Speaker 3: It just you can still convert one of those late
[28:21] Speaker 3: roster spots to a third quarterback and played a little
[28:24] Speaker 3: bit safer. So I think that's the default a little bit.
[28:27] Speaker 3: I think that answered the first two of your three questions.
[28:30] Speaker 1: Really really just threw a lot your way. No, it's
[28:33] Speaker 1: just just basically like it seems like the additional rounds
[28:35] Speaker 1: for you are are telling you that you should get
[28:38] Speaker 1: three quarterback, you should get three tight ends. Are there
[28:40] Speaker 1: any other like things that change mentally for you and
[28:43] Speaker 1: strategically with those two additional rounds.
[28:46] Speaker 3: There's a couple of things. I think there's some opportunity
[28:49] Speaker 3: at the onesie positions, particularly tight end, to go to four.
[28:53] Speaker 3: Some people, you know, even on some of the eighteen
[28:56] Speaker 3: round sites have found four tight ends to be a
[28:59] Speaker 3: little bit more viable then one would consider. I think
[29:01] Speaker 3: that's a stretch. But when you get to these twenty
[29:03] Speaker 3: round drafts. I really think that that's a strategy that
[29:08] Speaker 3: you can look at if you're drafting four tight ends late.
[29:11] Speaker 3: A lot of times where the tight ends go, they
[29:13] Speaker 3: are safer bets than the running backs and wide receivers,
[29:16] Speaker 3: especially at this point in the offseason where we don't
[29:18] Speaker 3: really know the roles of some of those later round
[29:20] Speaker 3: running backs and wide receivers, whereas the tight ends we
[29:22] Speaker 3: kind of know they're starting players and it's not like
[29:25] Speaker 3: they can't contribute in your flex position. So I think
[29:27] Speaker 3: taking four and like kind of with the randomness of
[29:30] Speaker 3: the position and also the injury rates of the position,
[29:34] Speaker 3: can make sense. You're not going to do that now
[29:36] Speaker 3: if you take a McBride earlier, you're only going to
[29:40] Speaker 3: stick to three in that scenario, or you could do two.
[29:43] Speaker 3: But as I said, I still like going to three.
[29:45] Speaker 3: So that's one thing I'll do. You know something that
[29:48] Speaker 3: I want to do in an eighteen round draft that
[29:50] Speaker 3: you could do in twenty round draft. That's very specific,
[29:52] Speaker 3: But if you wanted to take like Daniel Jones and
[29:55] Speaker 3: Anthony richardson super late, I think you can maybe justify
[30:00] Speaker 3: a bit more with the twenty round draft, especially those
[30:03] Speaker 3: rounds nineteen to twenty picks like very unlikely to to
[30:07] Speaker 3: come through if you want to just get a stranglehold
[30:09] Speaker 3: on the quarterback position for the Colts, in which one
[30:12] Speaker 3: of those guys can be undervalued. Certainly on a per
[30:14] Speaker 3: game basis. I think both those guys are going to
[30:17] Speaker 3: when they start, are going to produce at a higher
[30:19] Speaker 3: level than their QB positional ADP. It just we don't
[30:22] Speaker 3: know who's going to start. And a final one that
[30:26] Speaker 3: I'd consider doing with more drafts, a little bit more
[30:29] Speaker 3: room to gamble just on pure upside late right, Sometimes
[30:32] Speaker 3: I'm really worried about like dead roster spots, taking players
[30:35] Speaker 3: that you know they sound good in June July when
[30:39] Speaker 3: we're drafting, but then you know they the odds of
[30:42] Speaker 3: them making the roster a little bit lower and enter
[30:45] Speaker 3: the season with a dead roster spot, and those kind
[30:47] Speaker 3: of add up as injuries and whatnot happen over the
[30:49] Speaker 3: course of this season. When you have twenty rounds, even
[30:53] Speaker 3: if you are devoting extra resource to quarterback and tight end,
[30:55] Speaker 3: I do think there's some wiggle room to take some
[30:58] Speaker 3: home run swings there later with your skill players.
[31:02] Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes sense when you look at how best
[31:04] Speaker 1: ball drafters typically draft. I asked this to Tyler Emo
[31:08] Speaker 1: Cowboy last week on the show. When you look at
[31:11] Speaker 1: how best ball drafters just traditionally draft, what's one thing
[31:14] Speaker 1: that you think that drafters are doing sort of incorrectly overall?
[31:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, So I have two answers. I have like one
[31:21] Speaker 3: for like I guess, maybe more beginner casuals, and one
[31:24] Speaker 3: for more advanced players. For beginners casuals, I think just
[31:29] Speaker 3: they have a tough time balancing the draft capital correctly.
[31:32] Speaker 3: And when I say draft capital, what I'm talking about
[31:35] Speaker 3: is like, if you take Saquon Barkley early, each pick
[31:38] Speaker 3: has a lot of draft capital. That's a lot of
[31:40] Speaker 3: draft capital. You're already devoting to the running back position.
[31:42] Speaker 3: So now you don't want to go overboard on running
[31:45] Speaker 3: back throughout the draft. You have to assume that Saquon Barkley,
[31:49] Speaker 3: especially in these big tournaments, is going to have a
[31:51] Speaker 3: very good season, is going to stay relatively healthy. The
[31:54] Speaker 3: truth is, even if you just look at let's say,
[31:56] Speaker 3: in the big tournament, even if you just focused on
[31:58] Speaker 3: the regular season ASP weeks one through fourteen and advancing
[32:02] Speaker 3: out of that, it's two out of twelve teams it's
[32:04] Speaker 3: top heavy. If Saquon Barkley gets hurt, you're probably going
[32:07] Speaker 3: to lose, and you just need to accept that. You
[32:10] Speaker 3: don't want to be drafting too heavy on running back.
[32:13] Speaker 3: You get to a point of diminishing returns where Saquon
[32:16] Speaker 3: score is counting for you, like every week if he
[32:17] Speaker 3: stays healthy, and that could be you know, those resources
[32:20] Speaker 3: could be devoted elsewhere. So just kind of balancing how
[32:23] Speaker 3: much draft capital you're allocating to each of the positions.
[32:26] Speaker 3: For advanced players, I think sometimes advanced players can be
[32:30] Speaker 3: a little bit more inflexible, like they can get like
[32:33] Speaker 3: really take locked on their player takes and want to
[32:35] Speaker 3: have super heavy exposures. I still think even if you're
[32:38] Speaker 3: good at that, and I think having player takes is important,
[32:40] Speaker 3: ADP value is still important, so you want to find
[32:44] Speaker 3: a good middle ground there. And same thing with roster
[32:46] Speaker 3: construction stuff. I think people who typically know like what
[32:49] Speaker 3: the best roster constructions are might go into a draft
[32:52] Speaker 3: and be overly focused and rigid on like kind of
[32:55] Speaker 3: checking these boxes that they feel like they have to
[32:57] Speaker 3: do to be optimal. When some of the fun and
[33:00] Speaker 3: some of the like the best upside unique builds you
[33:02] Speaker 3: can get is by kind of taking what the draft
[33:05] Speaker 3: gives you and being flexible in terms of making that
[33:08] Speaker 3: work around it.
[33:09] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that point is really important. The last
[33:12] Speaker 1: one that you made about how when you go into
[33:14] Speaker 1: a draft, it's almost like you think about especially if
[33:16] Speaker 1: you're if you're like Max entering the Millie or something
[33:19] Speaker 1: like that, and you're you know, you know you're gonna
[33:21] Speaker 1: have hundreds of lineups that you're drafting over the summer.
[33:24] Speaker 1: Even if you have like fifty plus, you know, I'm not.
[33:26] Speaker 1: You don't even have to be like super high volume.
[33:28] Speaker 1: I do think that it's very easy to enter a
[33:32] Speaker 1: draft and think to yourself, I have to be as
[33:34] Speaker 1: optimal as possible in this singular draft, and I have
[33:37] Speaker 1: to get you know, my favorite values, and if I
[33:39] Speaker 1: don't get my but you you really have to just
[33:42] Speaker 1: be more open minded. I've realized because like last year,
[33:44] Speaker 1: for instance, I was way too rigid with my overall
[33:48] Speaker 1: roster construction. And that can like just just that that
[33:51] Speaker 1: strategic angle, because then you know that you're gonna be
[33:53] Speaker 1: more heavily exposed to certain players and less exposed to
[33:56] Speaker 1: other players. Just having that like that lock that take
[34:00] Speaker 1: if you will on roster construction can really ruin you.
[34:03] Speaker 1: So I think that's where I've I've really enjoyed the
[34:05] Speaker 1: the this goes back to the previous question the extra
[34:07] Speaker 1: two rounds is that you can kind of get funkier
[34:10] Speaker 1: with the way that you're organizing your team, and in
[34:14] Speaker 1: my opinion, DraftKings, the lobbies and the drafters are just
[34:17] Speaker 1: more wild wild West. Then you're gonna get, you know,
[34:20] Speaker 1: on other platforms, which you know can be frustrating at times.
[34:23] Speaker 1: You know, like yesterday or the other day, I had
[34:25] Speaker 1: a Jamar Chase and t Higgins stack and someone inexplicably
[34:28] Speaker 1: drafted Joe Burrow in the middle of the third round.
[34:31] Speaker 3: Why.
[34:31] Speaker 1: I have no idea, but it happened, and so you know,
[34:34] Speaker 1: it's it's frustrating from that angle. But then the other
[34:36] Speaker 1: angle is you can get ADP value. You can really
[34:39] Speaker 1: put together some really unique and fun builds because people
[34:42] Speaker 1: are a little bit more wild with the ADP. So
[34:45] Speaker 1: I think that's a really really good point to make,
[34:47] Speaker 1: is that you know, don't be super don't be overly structured.
[34:51] Speaker 1: Like we keep I keep having these conversations with people
[34:53] Speaker 1: and like we're telling you about like how to be
[34:56] Speaker 1: optimal and how to think optimally. But part of that,
[34:58] Speaker 1: to me is like going back to just the season
[35:01] Speaker 1: long basics of like being reactive to your draft, you
[35:03] Speaker 1: know what I mean.
[35:04] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, you know, people come and be like, oh,
[35:07] Speaker 3: you know three six eight three is optimal, Like I
[35:12] Speaker 3: gotta get a three six eighty three. It's like, well,
[35:14] Speaker 3: that's like kind of based on the average draft over
[35:16] Speaker 3: lots of drafts, you know, with stuff faring. But in
[35:19] Speaker 3: this draft, maybe a couple awesome running back values fell
[35:23] Speaker 3: to you early. You know, you don't want that to
[35:25] Speaker 3: be you know, maybe a three six, Maybe you only
[35:27] Speaker 3: want to go five running backs because you got like
[35:29] Speaker 3: two really good early values. What the optimal roster construction
[35:33] Speaker 3: is going to change based on what's available to you.
[35:36] Speaker 3: It's not something that's like preset in stone that's going
[35:38] Speaker 3: to hold throughout the whole draft.
[35:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. Can you talk about Week seventeen
[35:43] Speaker 1: a bit. This has been a question that a lot
[35:44] Speaker 1: of folks have come to me about. You know, I
[35:46] Speaker 1: think that intuitively people understand that it makes sense because
[35:49] Speaker 1: you know, it's the final week of the season, and
[35:51] Speaker 1: you know, in these tournament environments, we want the most upside.
[35:54] Speaker 1: But you've done a lot of work also on week
[35:56] Speaker 1: fifteen and sixteen, not just Week seventeen. So just kind
[35:59] Speaker 1: of talk it. Talk about these playoff weeks and the
[36:02] Speaker 1: importance of them and how much you weigh them and
[36:04] Speaker 1: if you think you weigh them more or less than
[36:06] Speaker 1: than other drafters do.
[36:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a pretty nuanced conversation because, like, I think
[36:12] Speaker 3: there's people that like maybe go overboard with Week seventeen,
[36:15] Speaker 3: with the idea being like, Okay, that's where the money is,
[36:18] Speaker 3: that's what we got to play for. We got to
[36:20] Speaker 3: optimize for Week seventeen because we're trying to win first place.
[36:24] Speaker 3: But I think the point that that misses is we're
[36:28] Speaker 3: building our teams now, not in Week seventeen, and your
[36:31] Speaker 3: expected value and your odds of winning are impacted by
[36:35] Speaker 3: your odds of advancing, you know, the first weeks one
[36:38] Speaker 3: through fourteen, and weeks fifteen and week sixteen as well.
[36:41] Speaker 3: So I push back a little bit on like the
[36:44] Speaker 3: that's where the money is, so that's where you have
[36:45] Speaker 3: to build for. I think that's not totally correct. But
[36:49] Speaker 3: at the same time, you know, if you look at
[36:51] Speaker 3: the million maker on DraftKings believe it's about a one
[36:53] Speaker 3: thousand a little over one thousand people in that final
[36:58] Speaker 3: If you're going to beat that many people, you probably
[37:00] Speaker 3: want some correlation in your lineup, and not only in
[37:04] Speaker 3: Week seventeen, but I think about it in terms of
[37:08] Speaker 3: making sure you stack your team in general, having multiple
[37:11] Speaker 3: stacks to get you through three kind of weeks that
[37:14] Speaker 3: are non content continuous. You're starting over. You advance out
[37:18] Speaker 3: of the regular season. You got to win week fifteen,
[37:19] Speaker 3: then you got to win week sixteen, then you got
[37:21] Speaker 3: to win week seventeen. And one way to do that
[37:24] Speaker 3: is they have multiple quarterbacks stacked where maybe one stack
[37:27] Speaker 3: hicks in weeks fifteen, different stack hits in week sixteen,
[37:31] Speaker 3: and then you can kind of pingpong that in week seventeen.
[37:33] Speaker 3: Maybe helps you get some unique combinations through to that
[37:36] Speaker 3: final week. But as far as completing a game stack,
[37:39] Speaker 3: which I consider to be at least one same team
[37:42] Speaker 3: pass catcher stacked with your quarterback and one opponent coming back.
[37:47] Speaker 3: You know, the data I've seen which has been more
[37:49] Speaker 3: geared to like half PPR sites because DraftKings hasn't you know,
[37:52] Speaker 3: released the full data, though I think this year they
[37:55] Speaker 3: may be that shows if you have three quarterbacks game stacked,
[38:00] Speaker 3: like the odds of winning a finals, you know, can
[38:03] Speaker 3: increase as much as like twenty percent over average. If
[38:06] Speaker 3: you don't have any of your quarterback stacked, your odds
[38:10] Speaker 3: of winning the finals is going to be below average.
[38:13] Speaker 3: And that's and then one quarterback stacked is kind of
[38:16] Speaker 3: like neutral, and two is very good as well in
[38:18] Speaker 3: terms of game stacks on a specific week. So it
[38:21] Speaker 3: is important that correlation does matter, It just kind of
[38:24] Speaker 3: you don't want to go overboard with it. And you
[38:26] Speaker 3: brought up weeks fifteen and sixteen. That's important to stack
[38:30] Speaker 3: war too, but it's not as much fun to think about,
[38:33] Speaker 3: so it gets overlooked. So if everyone's trying to complete
[38:37] Speaker 3: these week seventeen game stacks, which you know, the draftings
[38:40] Speaker 3: SERTN is big enough, I don't know if you have
[38:41] Speaker 3: to overly worry about like the combined ownership rates, but
[38:44] Speaker 3: maybe a little bit. But people aren't doing it for
[38:46] Speaker 3: weeks fifteen and sixteen, so maybe you're bang for your buck.
[38:49] Speaker 3: Is actually better game stacking there where people aren't doing
[38:52] Speaker 3: it and you're getting these correlations that the field isn't
[38:55] Speaker 3: going to have The reason why it's a little bit
[38:57] Speaker 3: less important is because you're advancing one out of twelve
[39:00] Speaker 3: weeks fifteen and sixteen, as opposed to trying to win
[39:02] Speaker 3: one thousand person field. So I talked a lot there
[39:06] Speaker 3: about it. Put one final note, I will say, like always,
[39:10] Speaker 3: completing an additional team stack is important, more important than
[39:14] Speaker 3: completing a game stack. Like if I've got CJ. Stroud
[39:18] Speaker 3: stacked and I've got Trevor Lawrence unstacked, It's more important
[39:23] Speaker 3: for me to draft pass catcher with Trevor Lawrence to
[39:25] Speaker 3: complete that stack than it is to get an opponent
[39:27] Speaker 3: of c J. Stroud's in Week seventeen, because those team
[39:29] Speaker 3: stacks are going to help you advance in the regular
[39:33] Speaker 3: season weeks fifteen, Week sixteen, and week seventeen.
[39:36] Speaker 1: Yeah, And speaking of those team stacks, I remember years
[39:39] Speaker 1: ago when you first did your first like big study unstacking,
[39:43] Speaker 1: because we were texting about it and stuff, and I
[39:45] Speaker 1: had used and referenced it on a mailbag episode and
[39:48] Speaker 1: one of the things that you brought up in that
[39:50] Speaker 1: cause it was more for it was actually like sort
[39:52] Speaker 1: of season long focus and stuff too. I remember like
[39:54] Speaker 1: it wasn't only like a best ball. Yeah thing, I
[39:56] Speaker 1: think it was just season long. But one of the
[39:59] Speaker 1: notes that you made in that study and in that
[40:01] Speaker 1: research was that and I try to apply this when
[40:05] Speaker 1: when speaking about this in Best ball too. But when
[40:08] Speaker 1: people are stacking, especially in best Ball, they think about
[40:11] Speaker 1: the weekly upside only, right, But there's also the season
[40:14] Speaker 1: long upside where if you hit on the stack that
[40:18] Speaker 1: ends up just the offense in general ends up outperforming
[40:21] Speaker 1: expectation by a whole lot, then your team is going
[40:24] Speaker 1: to outperform expectation. Generally, you know, you have better odds
[40:27] Speaker 1: to outperform expectations. So, like going back to your Houston example,
[40:30] Speaker 1: if you have c J. Stroud, Nico Collins, and Jayden Higgins.
[40:34] Speaker 1: Let's say and you get them all at ADP, but
[40:37] Speaker 1: you know, obviously you're gonna get you know, weekly spikes
[40:40] Speaker 1: whenever you know Nico Collins has two touchdowns and c J.
[40:43] Speaker 1: Stroud throws four and the other twour to Jaden Higgins.
[40:45] Speaker 1: Let's say, you know, in a perfect world for your team,
[40:48] Speaker 1: you get that weekly spike. But what if Houston is
[40:50] Speaker 1: the team that ends up outperforming expectation on a touchdowns
[40:53] Speaker 1: per game rate by a whole lot, Then all of
[40:55] Speaker 1: a sudden, you're gonna get that more frequently. And then
[40:57] Speaker 1: if you get that more frequently, then you're going to
[40:59] Speaker 1: out you know, expectation and in the way that that
[41:02] Speaker 1: you know other teams are performing as well. I think
[41:04] Speaker 1: that's something that often goes sort of untalked about with
[41:07] Speaker 1: stacking in general.
[41:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, And to expand on that, I think sometimes people
[41:11] Speaker 3: think about only the upside component of why we correlate,
[41:14] Speaker 3: but there's also in odds of getting things right in
[41:16] Speaker 3: terms of why we correlate. You do what you just
[41:18] Speaker 3: said with Houston, you have to get one thing right,
[41:21] Speaker 3: and you've gotten three spots that have paid off. Yeah,
[41:24] Speaker 3: on ADP as opposed to like if you have a
[41:27] Speaker 3: lot of Hubris and you're like, well, no, this is
[41:28] Speaker 3: the best receiver to take in this round, This is
[41:30] Speaker 3: the best quarterback to taking this round, and like, you know, yeah,
[41:33] Speaker 3: I've got Stroud, but I like, you know this other
[41:35] Speaker 3: rookie receiver better than Higgins. You're fighting an uphill battle.
[41:39] Speaker 3: You've got to get three things right now, whereas I
[41:42] Speaker 3: might only have to get one thing right to have
[41:44] Speaker 3: it pay off. And you have to think through each
[41:46] Speaker 3: draft again in what you were saying too is like,
[41:49] Speaker 3: if you're building a portfolio of drafts, you got to
[41:52] Speaker 3: treat each draft like individually. That doesn't mean you have
[41:55] Speaker 3: to bet on Houston and all your drafts, but in
[41:57] Speaker 3: this draft, that's the bet you've made. You do want
[42:00] Speaker 3: to lean into that?
[42:01] Speaker 1: Yeah? All right, let's keep talking about stacking. I want
[42:04] Speaker 1: to ask you two questions into one because I'm making
[42:06] Speaker 1: things more and more complicated for you throughout today's show
[42:09] Speaker 1: with stacking, Should you number one include running backs? And
[42:12] Speaker 1: that's in those stacks? But then number two, there's been
[42:15] Speaker 1: a lot of chatter over the last couple of years,
[42:17] Speaker 1: and I know that ETR has done some research and
[42:20] Speaker 1: some work on this, but stacking backfields, so let's say
[42:24] Speaker 1: getting base shall Tuton and Travis etn as opposed to
[42:27] Speaker 1: just placing a bet on one of those players in
[42:29] Speaker 1: a particular draft. So are you when you're stacking? Should
[42:33] Speaker 1: people be leaning into running back as well? In those stacks?
[42:35] Speaker 1: And then the second point, and the second question is
[42:38] Speaker 1: what about getting multiple backs when they're cheaper out of
[42:41] Speaker 1: those backfields?
[42:42] Speaker 3: First off, what we just said about this seasonal correlation
[42:45] Speaker 3: with the team really a flo really applies to the
[42:48] Speaker 3: running back position as well. If the offense rolls, everybody rolls.
[42:52] Speaker 3: So yeah, I think from an advanced rate perspective, you
[42:54] Speaker 3: want to include running backs in your stack because again,
[42:56] Speaker 3: you're just betting on that offense. I was just talking
[42:59] Speaker 3: to Thorman at ETR about something this morning, and he's
[43:01] Speaker 3: looking at the TV's over expected leaders Jamior Gibbs, I'm
[43:06] Speaker 3: on Saint Brown, Jamison Williams all in the top twenty,
[43:09] Speaker 3: you know, because the Lions, you know, went nuts. So
[43:13] Speaker 3: keep that in mind. I also think sometimes for the
[43:15] Speaker 3: weekly upside component, people want to avoid stacking running backs
[43:19] Speaker 3: with the quarterback because kind of the mindset's very narrow
[43:23] Speaker 3: of like this is a passion script or this is
[43:24] Speaker 3: a Russian script, and there's some truth to that. Certainly,
[43:29] Speaker 3: you know, it is definitely less valuable from a weekly
[43:31] Speaker 3: upside component. But as someone who's like messed around with
[43:34] Speaker 3: DFS SIMS and has played a lot of DFS over
[43:37] Speaker 3: the years, you'd be amazed how many weeks are decided
[43:40] Speaker 3: by like one team just really outperforming all the other
[43:43] Speaker 3: teams and the running back being included in there in
[43:47] Speaker 3: a build that you would think, oh, I can't build
[43:49] Speaker 3: that because we're like so narrow minded thinking, you know,
[43:52] Speaker 3: Jared Goff throws this game, so it's got to be
[43:55] Speaker 3: Sam Laporte, and I'm sat Brown. I can't have David
[43:57] Speaker 3: Montgomery in here and then Dave you know, they or
[44:00] Speaker 3: forty five points, and so I think that part's overblown.
[44:05] Speaker 3: I do want to say, as much as we're hyping
[44:07] Speaker 3: up stacking point that Justin Herzig made on DraftKings, it's
[44:11] Speaker 3: maybe a touch less important than other sites because you
[44:15] Speaker 3: get the full PPR scoring and you get those hundred
[44:17] Speaker 3: yard bonuses. Some of these volume driven up kind of
[44:21] Speaker 3: stats sort of diminish the stacking because the touchdown components,
[44:26] Speaker 3: you know Strout throwing a touchdown in Nico Collins, yeah,
[44:28] Speaker 3: and then both getting those touchdown points a little bit
[44:30] Speaker 3: diminished when you know Puka can go you know, ten
[44:33] Speaker 3: for one hundred and a game. The Rams stink a
[44:36] Speaker 3: little bit less impartant. Yeah, rand point just a little bit.
[44:39] Speaker 3: But as far as taking running backs together, I want
[44:42] Speaker 3: to look at this closer. I looked at this really
[44:44] Speaker 3: closely for a single year a few years ago, and
[44:46] Speaker 3: it was kind of interesting to look at and what
[44:49] Speaker 3: I had found was these running backs that were a
[44:54] Speaker 3: little bit cheaper. You know, think of running back with like,
[44:57] Speaker 3: you know, a round four to six tag and a
[44:59] Speaker 3: running back with me be around eight to thirteen tag
[45:02] Speaker 3: where they kind of had distinct roles in the offense.
[45:05] Speaker 3: Maybe one was the two down rusher with touchdown upside,
[45:08] Speaker 3: the other guy was kind of the pass catching upside.
[45:11] Speaker 3: Pairing those together worked pretty well where you're kind of
[45:14] Speaker 3: pingponging weeks based on how the game script goes for
[45:17] Speaker 3: the team, and then they each do have this kind
[45:21] Speaker 3: of contingency upside if the other one gets hurt. But
[45:24] Speaker 3: it's got to be pretty clear, like what the roles
[45:26] Speaker 3: are and that there's not a third and knowing back
[45:28] Speaker 3: that's going to come in, because you know, part of
[45:30] Speaker 3: that bet is running back b gets hurt. Running back
[45:33] Speaker 3: a you know, has this upside that you want to have.
[45:37] Speaker 3: It seemed to matter. Handcuffing seem to matter a little
[45:40] Speaker 3: bit less than like the orthodox handcuff situations. That would
[45:43] Speaker 3: be kind of like taking Sakwan Barkley first overall, and
[45:47] Speaker 3: maybe you know Will Shipley because you're like, oh, I
[45:50] Speaker 3: get you know, Barkley gets hurt. I gotta take Will
[45:52] Speaker 3: Shipley with the twenty rounder there's a little bit more
[45:54] Speaker 3: room for that. Again, you can get more creative, but
[45:57] Speaker 3: I don't go out of my way to do that. Now,
[46:00] Speaker 3: the ambiguous backfields, which is what you asked about with Jacksonville,
[46:04] Speaker 3: the advance rates and whatnot, weren't great in terms of
[46:09] Speaker 3: pairing those backs together against small sample. I want to
[46:12] Speaker 3: look at it again, but those backfields generally had one
[46:16] Speaker 3: guy who had a really good advance rate, So they're
[46:19] Speaker 3: just good backfields to target. And again, your bet in
[46:24] Speaker 3: a draft doesn't have to be your bet everywhere. If
[46:26] Speaker 3: Tutin falls and I take him, you know, I don't
[46:29] Speaker 3: know if I want to pair him with Etn. I
[46:31] Speaker 3: might just want to make my bet on Tutin in
[46:33] Speaker 3: this draft, but another draft I might make that bet
[46:36] Speaker 3: on just Etn. So over your portfolio, I think it
[46:39] Speaker 3: makes a ton of sense to be investing in these
[46:42] Speaker 3: ambiguous backfields, especially if you think, you know, like Kank
[46:45] Speaker 3: Bigsby's out and it's going to be one of these
[46:47] Speaker 3: two guys, right, but within a single draft, probably not
[46:51] Speaker 3: going out of my way to handcuff them. One caveat
[46:54] Speaker 3: is I will try anything if the value is really good.
[46:57] Speaker 3: You know, if I eat around pass value, and I
[47:00] Speaker 3: can get twoed in around pass value, I'm going to
[47:04] Speaker 3: pair them together in that situation.
[47:06] Speaker 1: Yeah. I like that answer. I mean it does make
[47:08] Speaker 1: a lot more sense. I mean, do you think that
[47:09] Speaker 1: there's any validity to you know, maybe you're only doing
[47:13] Speaker 1: twenty or thirty drafts this summer and as a result,
[47:16] Speaker 1: you don't have the breadth of portfolio, and so you
[47:20] Speaker 1: would then pair them, you know, in those circumstances, because
[47:22] Speaker 1: you look, you and I have both done so much
[47:24] Speaker 1: research on these ambiguous backfields at this point that like
[47:26] Speaker 1: we know that when they are truly ambiguous in this way,
[47:30] Speaker 1: that's where the money's at, right, And so would it
[47:33] Speaker 1: make more sense than if you're only doing fewer drafts
[47:35] Speaker 1: to maybe pair them up more frequently.
[47:37] Speaker 3: I don't think so. I still think you want to
[47:39] Speaker 3: make your bet in an individual draft and kind of
[47:42] Speaker 3: like assume it goes that way. Now, if I'm looking
[47:46] Speaker 3: at this situation wrong and maybe this is like kind
[47:49] Speaker 3: of a dual roll backfield that I mentioned, yeah, then
[47:53] Speaker 3: maybe there is more legitimacy there. Yeah, And I do
[47:58] Speaker 3: think whenever you start getting into the back where you
[48:00] Speaker 3: know both guys are beyond round eight, which is the
[48:04] Speaker 3: case in Jacksonville. I believe, Yeah, the cost isn't too bad,
[48:08] Speaker 3: But I think just because you're doing thirty teams, I
[48:11] Speaker 3: don't think. I still think you want to optimize each
[48:13] Speaker 3: team sort of like give yourself the best chance within
[48:16] Speaker 3: that team. I don't think you'd want to bring in
[48:19] Speaker 3: more hedging because you're doing less teams.
[48:22] Speaker 1: Yeah, just want to be clear for folks, you know,
[48:24] Speaker 1: if they are on the lower side from a volume perspective,
[48:28] Speaker 1: who are your favorite stacks right now? Overrun draftings?
[48:30] Speaker 3: So I really like a lot of the mid tier
[48:33] Speaker 3: quarterbacks this year and some teams that are stackbull around
[48:36] Speaker 3: with them. I think it's pretty deep and there's some
[48:42] Speaker 3: you see this all the time. You know this better
[48:43] Speaker 3: than anyone. With the pocket passers, there's a lot of
[48:46] Speaker 3: chasing what happened the previous year in both directions. Last year, CJ.
[48:50] Speaker 3: Stroud was probably going way too early. This year, I
[48:53] Speaker 3: think he's going too late. And on DraftKings where the
[48:57] Speaker 3: rookie receivers are cheaper than on other sites, it's very
[49:01] Speaker 3: stackable for a Stroud to get Higgins and Noel late.
[49:05] Speaker 3: Really like Nico at the one two turn. I think
[49:08] Speaker 3: even Christian Kirk is a very good best ball player.
[49:11] Speaker 3: Sometimes in best ball we think of you've got to
[49:13] Speaker 3: shoot for upside, but kind of these guys that are
[49:15] Speaker 3: going to be out there and rack up some volume
[49:17] Speaker 3: consistently and give you usable scores quite frequently. I think
[49:21] Speaker 3: Christian Kirk can be that. For Houston, you can even
[49:24] Speaker 3: I'm not a big Dalton Schultz fan, but it's not
[49:26] Speaker 3: hard to attack him on very late. So I like
[49:30] Speaker 3: the Texans, I like the Jaguars, I like the Dolphins.
[49:33] Speaker 3: I think these are three teams with highly drafted quarterbacks
[49:36] Speaker 3: that if things break right, it's that case where everyone
[49:40] Speaker 3: is going to benefit and pay off ADP. The price
[49:43] Speaker 3: tags on Tyreek and Waddall are cheaper than they've been
[49:46] Speaker 3: the past few years. If they can stay healthy. It's
[49:48] Speaker 3: a big if. But I think there's a ton of
[49:51] Speaker 3: upside there. And in Jacksonville you've got Brian Thomas, just
[49:55] Speaker 3: an elite player. You've got Travis Hunter, who's a special prospect,
[49:59] Speaker 3: but because of the unique situation he's in, he's not going,
[50:03] Speaker 3: you know, nearly. I mean, if he was wide receiver only,
[50:06] Speaker 3: this is someone that would be going kind of where
[50:08] Speaker 3: we had you know, Molik neighbors going last year somewhere
[50:12] Speaker 3: in that range. So if you're willing to take those
[50:14] Speaker 3: risks and again quarterbacks that have some sort of pedigree,
[50:17] Speaker 3: and you've got a new coaching staff in Jacksonville as well, Yeah,
[50:22] Speaker 3: guy who had success with Baker and Tampa, And there's
[50:25] Speaker 3: just more uncertainty in those situations, and those are kind
[50:27] Speaker 3: of the ones you want to buy in, Like there's
[50:29] Speaker 3: uncertainty with the Bears, but everyone's sort of buying into
[50:31] Speaker 3: that because it's not flying under the radar. Jacksonville people
[50:35] Speaker 3: wight not be buying into as much.
[50:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, I love those answers. All right, Well let's talk
[50:39] Speaker 1: about tight end. You started to chat about that a
[50:42] Speaker 1: little bit earlier. Are you in or out on elite
[50:44] Speaker 1: tight ends? And what does the data kind of say
[50:46] Speaker 1: about them?
[50:47] Speaker 3: So I think I'm in, But the data is a
[50:52] Speaker 3: little tricky because there's such a small sample. Each year.
[50:55] Speaker 3: It's like Travis Kelcey has a year where he goes
[50:58] Speaker 3: nuts and it's like elite tight ends, I mean, and
[51:01] Speaker 3: then you know, we have a year like last year,
[51:04] Speaker 3: a couple of years whereas a few of the elite
[51:06] Speaker 3: tight ends disappoint and it's like, man, you really should
[51:08] Speaker 3: have just taken three late tight ends. Yeah. So the
[51:12] Speaker 3: data is tough to pin down on elite tight end,
[51:15] Speaker 3: and I think sometimes the conversations almost skewed too structurally
[51:19] Speaker 3: as a result, where there's kind of people are like, oh,
[51:21] Speaker 3: you immediately tight end because you know, the positional advantage
[51:24] Speaker 3: you can gets greater than the positional advantage you can
[51:26] Speaker 3: get elsewhere. Especially in the playoff weeks, you get these
[51:28] Speaker 3: tight ends bike weeks no one can compete, And there's
[51:30] Speaker 3: validity to that, but I think it can be overblown.
[51:32] Speaker 3: I think the other side can maybe you know, look
[51:36] Speaker 3: at failure rates and like overly focus on that. So
[51:40] Speaker 3: we're kind of just focused on getting like our inputs
[51:43] Speaker 3: right on the tight ends and sort of seeing how
[51:47] Speaker 3: the value over replacement player works. It's not perfect, because
[51:51] Speaker 3: there is some playoff specific nuance you might want to apply.
[51:54] Speaker 3: With that said, what we found with the same inputs,
[51:56] Speaker 3: you know, on some of the half PPR sites, we
[51:58] Speaker 3: find people overvaluing the elite tight ends and really maybe
[52:01] Speaker 3: trying to make it more of a thing than it
[52:03] Speaker 3: needs to be. Whereas I'm trying to kind of treat
[52:05] Speaker 3: Bowers and McBride individually where they should go relative to
[52:08] Speaker 3: the other players, and then the full PPR site like DraftKings,
[52:11] Speaker 3: we have them undervalued and I think a lot of
[52:15] Speaker 3: their value is like way more volume than these later
[52:18] Speaker 3: tight ends. And we talked about this with the PPR scoring,
[52:21] Speaker 3: but you know, a cherry pick stat line. But if
[52:24] Speaker 3: McBride goes eight for one hundred in a game without
[52:28] Speaker 3: scoring on a half normal half PPR site, that's fourteen
[52:32] Speaker 3: fantasy points. Hunter Henry goes three for thirty with a touchdown, Yeah,
[52:37] Speaker 3: you know, he's scoring ten and a half points. It's
[52:40] Speaker 3: like a three point difference. It's not a huge edge.
[52:42] Speaker 3: On DraftKings, that gap grows to like nine points because
[52:46] Speaker 3: you're getting the bonus, you're getting the full PPR. It's
[52:48] Speaker 3: like adding a touchdown to McBride's stat line in terms
[52:51] Speaker 3: of the gap between the two players. So I do
[52:53] Speaker 3: think that affects the tight ends in a meaningful way.
[52:57] Speaker 3: And as a result, we're ahead of eighty PM both
[53:00] Speaker 3: Boers and McBride on Draftking. So I'll say I'm in.
[53:03] Speaker 3: But it's not like every year you should be trying
[53:06] Speaker 3: to go elite tight end. I think you want to
[53:09] Speaker 3: kind of try and base it on the player pool
[53:11] Speaker 3: for that specific year.
[53:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is research I did for the Draft
[53:15] Speaker 1: Guide this year, and this is season long based obviously,
[53:17] Speaker 1: but it does obviously. I mean, it's not like it's
[53:19] Speaker 1: a completely different game. But last year seemed like, especially
[53:23] Speaker 1: in hindsight, like a transition year at tight end, where
[53:26] Speaker 1: the ADPs were kind of showing us that too, where
[53:29] Speaker 1: it wasn't like these guys were going in the first
[53:31] Speaker 1: and second round as frequently as we had seen in
[53:33] Speaker 1: the past. And so then we see what happened, like
[53:35] Speaker 1: we knew that someone was going to emerge, right, Like
[53:37] Speaker 1: we knew that it was gonna happen. But I think
[53:41] Speaker 1: that fewer probably did then expected last year. But we
[53:44] Speaker 1: still got Trey McBride, we still got George Kittle, and
[53:47] Speaker 1: we still got Brock Bauers, right, And it seems like
[53:50] Speaker 1: this year and if you look at like the predictability
[53:53] Speaker 1: of early round tight ends and how you know where
[53:56] Speaker 1: they're drafted and how they finished, top three, ish tight
[53:58] Speaker 1: ends usually are the And of course this is in
[54:01] Speaker 1: a sample that includes Travis Kelce, Rob Gronkowski all of that,
[54:05] Speaker 1: But even when you remove those guys from the sample.
[54:07] Speaker 1: The guys you know who are top three or so
[54:10] Speaker 1: in ADP that aren't them still are giving you, like
[54:13] Speaker 1: the big outputs at the at the end of the season.
[54:15] Speaker 1: And so I do think and this this kind of
[54:17] Speaker 1: goes to It definitely goes to quarterbacks too, in my opinion,
[54:20] Speaker 1: where like, you know, we can look at VORP and
[54:23] Speaker 1: I want to maybe get your thoughts. This will just
[54:24] Speaker 1: be sort of like a freestyle about this, because I
[54:26] Speaker 1: think it's just a really important aspect of fantasy football
[54:29] Speaker 1: that doesn't get talked about enough. But like we look
[54:32] Speaker 1: at VORP and we do this analysis, this value of
[54:34] Speaker 1: a replacement player analysis, and we're saying, Okay, this guy's
[54:37] Speaker 1: projected for X number of points more than this guy,
[54:39] Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. But there's a predictability angle to
[54:42] Speaker 1: this that that is not really spoken about enough, where
[54:46] Speaker 1: we know pretty pretty pretty factually, I should say, but
[54:50] Speaker 1: maybe that's too strong of a word, who the top
[54:53] Speaker 1: quarterbacks are gonna be this year. Like we Josh Allen's
[54:56] Speaker 1: been a top two quarterback in fantasy football for like
[54:58] Speaker 1: six straight years. You know, jayl We know who that's
[55:00] Speaker 1: gonna We know he's gonna get it done. Lamar Jackson
[55:03] Speaker 1: obviously we know he's gonna get it done, and now
[55:05] Speaker 1: we expect Jane Daniels to be that dude. I feel
[55:07] Speaker 1: that way too at tight end, where we have a
[55:10] Speaker 1: better idea about Bowers McBride into a lesser extent, but
[55:14] Speaker 1: I think to a decent extent George Kittle, and that
[55:17] Speaker 1: to me should at least be elevating their cost to
[55:20] Speaker 1: at least some degree. You know, I don't mean that
[55:23] Speaker 1: like we got to draft them around earlier than where
[55:25] Speaker 1: they're going, but I do think that's pretty important, you know,
[55:28] Speaker 1: like that we feel really good about that player, because
[55:30] Speaker 1: once you get into even like Sam Laporta at tight
[55:33] Speaker 1: end four, we're sitting there and we're like, well, look
[55:36] Speaker 1: at what happened last year, and there was a it
[55:38] Speaker 1: was a very up and down season, and that just
[55:40] Speaker 1: happened to be the year that that Jamison Williams was
[55:42] Speaker 1: more introduced to the offense. And now Ben Jon like,
[55:44] Speaker 1: you start to get all of these factors that are
[55:47] Speaker 1: more volatile and that won't necessarily show up as much
[55:50] Speaker 1: in a projection, and so that to me is one
[55:54] Speaker 1: of the reasons why I also feel better about going
[55:58] Speaker 1: with one of those elite tight ends. You think that's
[55:59] Speaker 1: the way of thinking about this.
[56:02] Speaker 3: No, I think that makes sense. I do think in
[56:04] Speaker 3: them is an element I'd like to build into our
[56:08] Speaker 3: analysis a little bit more in the future. Is the
[56:09] Speaker 3: predictability of positions. Yeah, if I was pushing back a
[56:13] Speaker 3: little bit, it would just be like injury rates are
[56:15] Speaker 3: a little bit higher on the tight end position. Even
[56:17] Speaker 3: though and then also while you're right, you know, we're
[56:22] Speaker 3: still only filling one tight end position, especially in best ball,
[56:25] Speaker 3: where we can potentially just cobble together a different strategy,
[56:29] Speaker 3: and there's still an opportunity cost to like are you
[56:31] Speaker 3: taking Brock Powers or are you taking you know, Derek
[56:34] Speaker 3: Henry or Drake London. Like, there's still even though you're
[56:37] Speaker 3: right in terms of the predictability of the position, especially
[56:41] Speaker 3: in terms of the finishing order, Like on a per
[56:43] Speaker 3: game finishing order, the variance between brock Bowers at the
[56:46] Speaker 3: tight end position is way less than the variants of
[56:49] Speaker 3: like Drake London at the wide receiver position. Right, you know,
[56:53] Speaker 3: brock Bowers is going to be on a per game
[56:55] Speaker 3: basis a top three tight ends, right, Like we know
[56:57] Speaker 3: that now basically that's one hundred person locked in. Yeah,
[57:01] Speaker 3: but it's it's just hard to know the full trickle
[57:04] Speaker 3: down effect when you're starting to know three wide receivers
[57:06] Speaker 3: versus one tight end. So yeah, but I do agree.
[57:09] Speaker 3: I think, you know, if you're getting really nerdy in
[57:12] Speaker 3: the future, like there's some stuff that like if you
[57:14] Speaker 3: could figure out like a season long simmer or something,
[57:16] Speaker 3: that'd be like really interesting to like kind of be
[57:19] Speaker 3: able to code in the predictability of the different positions
[57:21] Speaker 3: a little bit better.
[57:22] Speaker 1: And look, you're you're appreciate the choir obviously, because I've
[57:25] Speaker 1: been you know, streaming tight ends on living the stream
[57:27] Speaker 1: for over a decade now and talked about it being
[57:30] Speaker 1: a onesie and supplying demand and all that kind of stuff,
[57:33] Speaker 1: and so you know, I I totally agree, And I
[57:36] Speaker 1: think at the end of the day, what I've sort
[57:38] Speaker 1: of come to the conclusion of is that in these environments,
[57:42] Speaker 1: I'm usually just going early or just not at all, right,
[57:45] Speaker 1: I'm just I'm really just getting those three late round
[57:48] Speaker 1: tight ends and feeling better about it as opposed to
[57:50] Speaker 1: like really forcing it with Sam Laporta, really forcing it
[57:53] Speaker 1: with TJ Hockinson, and really forcing it with Travis Kelce
[57:56] Speaker 1: just because historically that's where the predictability has fallen off.
[57:59] Speaker 1: And I think that where even within this you know environment,
[58:04] Speaker 1: that's where the volatility really begins, is kind of after
[58:07] Speaker 1: the George Kittle range.
[58:08] Speaker 3: Historically the six to eighth round world of tight ends
[58:11] Speaker 3: has not has been horrible, has not yet done well.
[58:14] Speaker 3: There's a there's a lot of risk in those profiles.
[58:19] Speaker 3: I agree with that. Yeah, And like I said, you know,
[58:22] Speaker 3: we're ahead on Bauers and McBride, so I'm definitely yeah
[58:26] Speaker 3: in on it. On DraftKings. I'm just not sure about
[58:29] Speaker 3: the year over year structural edge necessarily being like, you
[58:35] Speaker 3: need any league tight.
[58:35] Speaker 1: End, yeah, yeah, Yeah, makes a ton of.
[58:37] Speaker 3: Sund I think you can win without any Eleaite tight end.
[58:40] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[58:40] Speaker 3: If they're good values, then take them and build around
[58:43] Speaker 3: your team around that accordingly.
[58:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, makes sense, all right. When we look back, last question,
[58:47] Speaker 1: when we look back on the twenty twenty five season,
[58:50] Speaker 1: what's one macro trend that you think we're going to see.
[58:52] Speaker 1: You know, last year macro trend was the RB twos
[58:56] Speaker 1: were a lot better, partially or largely because of the
[59:00] Speaker 1: lack of injuries and such that we saw or you know,
[59:02] Speaker 1: earlier round running back was better than folks thought, you know,
[59:05] Speaker 1: entering the season. What's one thing that you think will
[59:07] Speaker 1: see at a macro level as we look back on
[59:10] Speaker 1: the twenty twenty five seasons. So it's January twenty twenty
[59:13] Speaker 1: six as you're answering this question.
[59:15] Speaker 3: I'm going to try and people please here, but late
[59:17] Speaker 3: late round quarterback, baby oooh, there we go. Maybe not
[59:21] Speaker 3: like too late round, but you know, in best ball,
[59:23] Speaker 3: late round is more like mid round. But I just
[59:26] Speaker 3: think there's a slew of pocket passers that you know,
[59:29] Speaker 3: maybe just ran a little bit bad last year, and
[59:31] Speaker 3: the position just seems deeper than you know I remember
[59:34] Speaker 3: it with like you know, Drake May stepping in and
[59:37] Speaker 3: being like a viable candidate. You know, you've even got
[59:40] Speaker 3: young guys like Michael Pennox, Bryce Young that have some
[59:43] Speaker 3: breakout potential. And then on DraftKings, we already hit on
[59:48] Speaker 3: the skill players with the PPR scoring and the bonuses
[59:50] Speaker 3: maybe being more important to get at the top. So
[59:52] Speaker 3: I think like taking three mid round quarterbacks as a
[59:55] Speaker 3: way to go. I hit on Stroud, Lawrence and two
[59:57] Speaker 3: as my favorite stacks. But you get like Dak Prescott
[1:00:01] Speaker 3: in there who's added weapons and had a huge season
[1:00:03] Speaker 3: in the past, and like why his ADP much lower
[1:00:06] Speaker 3: than before. It's you know, just all based on recent history.
[1:00:09] Speaker 3: So I really think the mid round quarterback is the
[1:00:11] Speaker 3: way to go. And this might just be perception, but
[1:00:16] Speaker 3: I feel like the skill players in the first six
[1:00:18] Speaker 3: rounds are a bit better than we've had in some
[1:00:21] Speaker 3: previous years. That's definitely just based off feel. I don't
[1:00:24] Speaker 3: have any data to support that. You know, we had
[1:00:26] Speaker 3: a smooth running backs last year, change teams and getting
[1:00:31] Speaker 3: better situations that all hit and they're still with those teams.
[1:00:34] Speaker 3: This year. You've added Ashton Genty to the running back
[1:00:37] Speaker 3: player pool, Chase Brown broke out and is like a
[1:00:40] Speaker 3: type of guy that like we actually like, and you know,
[1:00:43] Speaker 3: the wide receiver position, we're going to get Rashie Rice back.
[1:00:45] Speaker 3: We had some Xavior worthy breakout. We have you know,
[1:00:48] Speaker 3: some early rookie receivers in McMillan and Travis Hunter. I
[1:00:52] Speaker 3: just think those first six the seventh rounds are pretty
[1:00:55] Speaker 3: deep at skill players. So I really like the three
[1:00:58] Speaker 3: quarterback builds this year more than I have in the past.
[1:01:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I love that answer for a lot
[1:01:03] Speaker 1: of reasons. But look, I mean, I've said on the
[1:01:05] Speaker 1: show plenty that I've I've touted early around quarterbacking over
[1:01:08] Speaker 1: the last handful of years two because of that predictability angle.
[1:01:12] Speaker 3: But I was gonna jump in there, like and it's
[1:01:14] Speaker 3: different between Best Ball two and in regular redrafts, where yes,
[1:01:20] Speaker 3: I'm you know, in basketball, I'm getting the benefit. I
[1:01:23] Speaker 3: got like three of these guys, I just need one
[1:01:25] Speaker 3: of them to match you know, Allen or just be close.
[1:01:28] Speaker 3: And then the stack ability of bringing along the teammates.
[1:01:30] Speaker 3: So it's like, you know, a pretty big difference there where.
[1:01:34] Speaker 3: I don't think these quarterbacks have top six quarterback upside
[1:01:38] Speaker 3: that I'm mentioning, but I think they could all be
[1:01:41] Speaker 3: like the Baker Mayfield this year, which is really good.
[1:01:45] Speaker 3: And you get a bunch of bets on that you're
[1:01:48] Speaker 3: more traditional like casual redraft league, you're going to put
[1:01:52] Speaker 3: more emphasis on like, hey, I can beat my opponents elsewhere,
[1:01:55] Speaker 3: let me lock into these elite quarterbacks. To your point,
[1:01:57] Speaker 3: the predictability, we know who the top five quarter pretty
[1:02:00] Speaker 3: much are going to be at least you know, a
[1:02:03] Speaker 3: seventy five percent of them.
[1:02:04] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's like The key difference if
[1:02:07] Speaker 1: you were to just high level this between Best Ball
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: and Season long is that you have to think about
[1:02:12] Speaker 1: the predictability side and can you match that with you know,
[1:02:16] Speaker 1: players automatically going into your lineup with these spiked weeks.
[1:02:19] Speaker 1: And I agree, especially with those extra two rounds, just
[1:02:21] Speaker 1: to just to bring things back to the beginning of
[1:02:23] Speaker 1: the show. Especially with those back those those those final
[1:02:26] Speaker 1: two rounds and those extra two rounds, it's easier to
[1:02:28] Speaker 1: get three quarterbacks in there. And you know, if you
[1:02:30] Speaker 1: can get if you understand the volatility of passing production
[1:02:34] Speaker 1: and touchdown rates and stuff like that, you can throw
[1:02:36] Speaker 1: together the Trevor Lawrence is in the CJ shrouds of
[1:02:38] Speaker 1: the world and Bryce Young's who actually has some mobility
[1:02:41] Speaker 1: upside too. You can put them together and match that
[1:02:44] Speaker 1: that kind of production. So that makes makes a ton
[1:02:46] Speaker 1: of sense. Leoni, this was great as usual. I'm sure
[1:02:49] Speaker 1: everyone's gonna walk away with some more knowledge about Best Ball.
[1:02:53] Speaker 1: Let everyone know what you're working on, where they can
[1:02:55] Speaker 1: find you, and what you guys have going on over
[1:02:57] Speaker 1: at ETR.
[1:02:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, I can just head over established to run dot
[1:03:01] Speaker 3: com to find all my stuff. Part of the rankings
[1:03:04] Speaker 3: team We have rankings for a ton of different formats,
[1:03:07] Speaker 3: including DraftKings top three hundred specifically for best Ball, so
[1:03:12] Speaker 3: make sure to check us out there once the season
[1:03:14] Speaker 3: rolls around two will be a great home for you
[1:03:17] Speaker 3: for DFS content and projections.
[1:03:19] Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, you can find all my stuff over on
[1:03:21] Speaker 1: lateround dot com. Make sure people that you are pre
[1:03:24] Speaker 1: ordering the Late Round Draft Guide that goes out July first.
[1:03:28] Speaker 1: That will go up in price on July first, so
[1:03:30] Speaker 1: pre order before then. I got to get that thing
[1:03:33] Speaker 1: done because I only have about a week to go
[1:03:35] Speaker 1: until that thing launches. But check it all out lateround
[1:03:38] Speaker 1: dot com. Make sure you subscribe, and make sure you
[1:03:40] Speaker 1: check out the YouTube channel as well, YouTube dot com
[1:03:42] Speaker 1: slash at Late Round FF. As always, everyone, thanks for
[1:03:47] Speaker 1: tuning in.

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